In Auct again I write, 221 AD.
The stone-wrought deck of the Atanite
stood threaded with thousands of luminous
symbols, each overspilling with the
necrotic aspect of magick so that the ark
shone like a jade star among dead skies.
It was the only star I recognized in the
realm of the dead, for the many lights
that teemed above had long ago passed
from the realm of the living. They could
offer me no guidance.
These bewildering sights did not distract
me for long, however, for the gnawing
anguish of my bloodthirst soon seized my
throat anew.(...) Inside, I felt the
blood diminished,(...) less able to
propel the shell of dead flesh that was
its vessel,(...) my vessel.
“Amarax… please…
tell me what must be done.”
"You must take the maw below.
You must seek the
grave of Gwyneth Armin."
“I can scarcely move myself at the
moment. That thing
weighs as much as a house.”
“It is not its weight that impedes you.
Rather, you must resist its power in
order to move it, and this power is
great, thus great effort is required.”
“Either way, I can
no longer carry it.”
“You can, because I sealed
it when you brought it on board.
Otherwise it would have
consumed the Atanite.”
I looked to the maw, which lay upon the
deck. The strange relief of a three-eyed
visage gazed up at me, but the vertical
passage of its mouth was no more. “What
is this thing?” I said, lifting the now
nearly weightless stone from the deck.
"What is its purpose?"
"Their original purpose is not known, but
they make very effective prisons."
“I didn’t know
Deadhaus took prisoners.”
“Some things are too difficult to
destroy, but also too dangerous to ignore.
For them, we have the Hollow Maws.”
“Like that shadow…
the one with six eyes.”
“A servant of S’sa-Naraj, a demon.”
“Is Deadhaus at war with them too?”
"We've managed to avoid that thus far.
The demons are loathe to leave the Abyss.
They withhold their presence from
Malorum, though occasionally they seep
through the shadows of Anu Maht.
Better to trap them there than allow
their return to the Sun Eater.”
"What do they want?"
“They want what their
Ancient wants, as do all Great Houses.
But we need not concern
ourselves with them yet.
One war at a time.”
Once more the hideous thirst crushed all
thought from my mind.
“The grave… where is the grave?”
“For that you will need a guide, but
with the helm stone shattered I must
remain aboard to assure the
Atanite remains in place.”
With that, the liche snapped his skeletal
fingers, and a streak of sickly green
light emerged from behind one of the
masts. It was the little shade we'd found
in the tithe hold, and it bobbed
uncertainly near the mast.
Amarax pointed at the spirit, and slowly
it drew near to him, though I could see
from the translucent image of its simple
eyes and mouth that it
struggled against the command.
The liche withdrew a golden locket from
his robes and held it before the shade.
"You will find the
soul to whom this belongs.
You will guide the fledgling."
The shade trembled as the liche spoke;
then Amarax passed the locket to me, and
the shade darted behind me.
"Take the maw.(...) Go below.
Follow the shade and makehaste.(...)The
Atonite can only remain tethered to this
realm while charged
with the necrotic aspect.
When the soul prism is spent,(...) the
ark will slip back into theEtheric Sea."
I said nothing, but leapt atop the
bulwark with the maw tucked under one arm
and stepped forward without so much as a
downward glance. The mist poured from my
mouth as I fell, encircling me, becoming
me, and so too was the maw enveloped and
dispersed. And from the mist did many
bats burst forth, their shrill cries
piercing the endless dark.
They swirled ever downward, spiraling
toward an enormous statue of a veiled
figure, gathering above
one of its outstretched palms.
The bats flew into one another, bursting
into mist just before colliding, followed
by ever more, until the mist grew into a
cloud, and when it dispersed I remained
as Alaric the Damned once more, perched
upon the open hand of
the figure veiled in stone.
The statue that held me stood amidst a
disorienting jumble of
terrain and structures.
I suppose I could call it a cemetery, but
this would barely touch its nature.
Gravestones jutted from the ground in
great huddles, wedged violently together,
overlapping, clambering atop each other.
So many were there that at times they
seemed like vast walls of mangled
masonry. And stone sarcophagi sprawled in
droves, lidless, covered, broken, whole,
hundreds, thousands, as far as my
vampiric sight could pierce. The ground,
covered in pale, dead grasses, was
uneven. It sloped down and away at such
an angle that in places the gravestones
and sarcophagi seemed
as much stairs as walls.
“How can it be that the dead are buried
in their own realm?” I thought.
“These are the Sundered Graves.
Each is a passage for those who were
given proper burials on Malorum.”
“And what of those who go unburied?”
“So long as they
are given funerary rites,
souls may enter the realm of the dead by
dirt, flame, or water
and will arrive in kind.”
“What of those
forgotten, those given no rites?”
“Without the proper rituals, they are
doomed to wander Malorum as ghosts.”
My telepathic discourse was suddenly cut
short by the voice of a great bell. Each
toll bestirred my blood with tidal force,
beckoning me to follow, to stand before
the mighty bell. But I was
not alone in this calling.
As the bell tolled, coffin lids swung
wide as doors,(...) stone covers slid
free of their sarcophagi, and all around
the dead began to rise, slowly,
methodically, as if in a trance they
emerged from their resting places.
Their forms resembled what they were in
life, though no longer flesh and bone,
but pale light, translucent and green.
Some were dressed in rags, others
finery. They stared, expressionless, each
without eyes, saying nothing.
With trance-like movement they pulled
themselves from their graves and began to
shuffle toward the sound of the bell,
forming orderly lines along the paths
that were available to them, the dead
roads that sloped ever downward.
“Are they foes? Will they attack?”
“So long as you do not impede them,
they will ignore you.”
“And what would happen if I were to
strike down the dead here?”
“Then, to their
graves they would return,
Until the bell tolled again."
A streak of sickly green descended from
darkened skies then. The shade, just now
having completed its journey from the
deck of the Atanite, bobbed before me,
expectantly. I reached for it, and it
drew away, down toward the pale, dead
grasses. I leapt from the statue’s
hand, barely clearing any vertical
distance, and feeling the now unfamiliar
sensation of impact as my feet struck the
ground. My legs wobbled in surprise, but
I held myself upright.
“Lead the way, little shade,” I said,
and the sickly green
light drifted forward.
Though the shade was not very quick, I
struggled to keep pace. The blood
dribbled through me like tar, suffusing
my entire being with gnawing pain. I
moved alongside the rows of the dead who
shuffled in unison toward the sound of
the bell. Their forms faded in and out of
being, sometimes little more than
flickers of green, but they seemed
unaffected, if they noticed at all. I
clambered over gravestones and sarcophagi
as best I could with the maw tucked under
one arm, and at length I found from where
the bell tolled, a massive structure that
stood astride a black river.
I thought at first it might have been
wrought of marble or limestone, but as I
drew closer I realized the grim truth.
The entire structure was adorned with a
macabre tracery of entwined bones, as if
they had been woven together, marking its
façade with an almost lace-like pattern.
It was from this horrid place that the
dread bell called, from high arches and
sharpened spires that stabbed up into the
dark, threading streaks of sickly green
that ever sighed in their flight.
In many niches, carven figures stood
silent and veiled like the statue in the
Sundered Graves, their skeletal faces
solemn and bowed, each clinging to
scythes that stood taller than themselves.
Bone steps rose to bone doors flung wide,
where the dead marched together, and
above this entrance, a great circular
window, its mullions
wrought into the sign of Allalmawt.
"My God...
What is this place?”
"It is a Pale Temple, a place of worship--
cah, no! Get back here!”
“What!? What?” I crouched, startled
by the force of the voice in my thoughts.
"Not you."
I saw then that the shade had begun to
drift towards the temple doors.
"Don't make me come down there."
The liche’s voice emanated from my
mind, and the shade
quickly returned to my side.
“Move along now, Alaric.”
Once more I followed the shade, leaving
the Pale Temple to the dead that streamed
into it. The tolling of the bell slowly
faded behind me and ultimately fell
silent. The shade took us along the
river, whose black waters sank to
unguessable depths, and I saw that hills
rose on all sides of the temple, each
strewn thickly with tombs, like rows of
mangled teeth, dim white
under the light of dead stars.
A groaning, grinding noise rose from
those hills then, and I felt the ground
beneath me shudder. I saw the hills wrack
and tear, splitting open to disgorge more
graves, new tombs grinding old to dust.
“What’s happening?”
“More have been buried, their rites
conducted, and so their graves are
sundered in the realm of the dead.”
As the liche spoke, the bell began to
toll once more, and though I could not
see them, I knew that the newly dead
would soon begin their
march to the Pale Temple.
I followed the shade, which followed the
river still, far from the Sundered
Graves, until the land was flat and gray.
It seemed at first that snow was falling
here, but by its smell I knew it to be
ash, and with it fell soft lights, jade
embers that gave no heat, even as they
fell upon my face. I dragged my aching
body through the gray, leaving tracks for
the first time since my death. What ash
fell into the river was swallowed by the
darkness; the jade embers were not
extinguished by the water,
but sank down beyond my sight.
“Watch your step in the Pyric Fields.”
“I see no perils.”
“Follow the shade closely.”
The shade, which had veered away from the
river, did not drift in a straight line,
but rather arced and swerved, and I kept
as close to it as I could manage.
Soon, I learned why Amarax had advised me
to, as a gout of bright green flame burst
from the ground,
spraying ash high into the sky.
As the fire faded, the pale, translucent
form of a severed soul stood in its place.
“His body was burned?”
“Correct, and he was given his rites.”
The soul stood staring ahead, eyeless,
and I left it behind.
Here and there, new fires emerged,
blasting through the ash, thrashing my
coat in their proximity, and with each
eruption came the echoes of voices, of
chants and recitations, of elegies that
emanated from Malorum by those that
gathered round the one that burned.
As each fire faded, a severed soul stood
in its place, and I saw that in the Pyric
Fields so many stood unmoving, untouched
by the falling ash, until at last a new
bell tolled, and all at once so many
green lights began to
move, to march in unison.
We moved beyond the fields, until ash
fell no longer, and thick mists fell upon
me as a veil, clouding even my vampiric
sight. Still, the glow of the shade lit
my way, and I followed blindly, now
beginning to stumble.
“The Veil of Vestiges… I
thought she might be here.”
“You might have
dropped me closer to it.”
“I can barely keep the Atanite afloat
without the helm stone.”
“It’s getting
harder to move.”(...) "Yet,
still you must."
“Can’t you help me
somehow? With your magick?”
"There is no substitute for the blood of
the living, I'm afraid."
“What will happen if I cannot drink?”
"Your blood will consume itself."
“And then?”
“Once its volume reaches a critical
threshold, it will
crystalize to preserve itself.
Your body will desiccate and crumble, and
what is left of your blood will remain as
a bloodstone--highly
resistant--quite valuable.”
“Wonderful… and I
suppose that’s the end of me?”
"Not necessarily.
If exposed to sufficient levels of mortal
blood, the bloodstone can restore itself.
Rather."
Atleast the pain will stop.”
“Oh no, you’ll be quite conscious--
not of the outside world--but your thirst.
You'll feel it at its greatest strength
for however long you
remain crystallized."
“Please… not that.”
“I suppose that’s why vampires come
back mad sometimes, depending on how long
they were crystalized.”
In the back of my mind, I could feel
that, though he felt no sympathy, no
pity, neither did Amarax delight in what
he told me. He gave these answers as he
would any others, as a matter of fact. He
was indifferent to suffering, perhaps
unaware of what it meant any more. Maybe
he left that memory behind long ago.
“Please, shade, please hurry.”
To my surprise, the shade did hasten its
pace, and I did as best
I could to hasten mine.
Then a shape loomed out of the mist, an
abandoned church, the sight of which
chilled my diminished blood.
I had seen it before. Many hooves
thundered from the mist behind me, and as
I turned a figure blurred past me, too
quickly to discern its features, and
disappeared into the church.
Then came eleven Thacean horsemen in
thunderous pursuit,(...) their steeds a
spectral green like themselves, their
translucent forms wavering in the mist,
(...) one of them dismounted and
approached the church doors.
"No," I whispered.
"I invite you in," a
voice said from the church.
"No!"
“I killed your friends. Their blood
seeps into Malorum, even
now... it smells so sweet.
The horsemen drew his sword in wrath and
stepped into the shadows of the church.
His screams followed shortly after, and
the sound of tearing flesh.
Others drew their swords, some
dismounted. There was shouting, arguing.
Before long, they
crossed as one into the church.
This time I followed them. The sight was
much the same as I remembered. I saw it
there, in the darkness, glimpses of it,
flickers of predation. It fell upon the
horsemen as if from all sides, slicing
into them, dragging them
screaming into the shadows.
They called for me, begging me to help
them. I dropped the maw, reeling on my
feet, and thrust my palm at the creature
in the dark, but no power rose from me.
In the time it had taken me to do this,
they had all been slain, and the lone
figure stood watching me from afar. I
staggered toward it, sinking to my knees.
"Damn you!"
“I am damned already,” it answered,
smiling as it stepped forward. I knew its
face. I had seen it when I looked through
the eyes of Amarax
upon the ark… a monster.
Then darkness fell upon me, and for a
moment I knew no thirst.
I knew nothing.
Through the darkness, I heard
a woman’s voice call to me.
“The blood of ages flows so sweet…
come, drink from us.”
And blood was upon my lips. My mouth
opened, taking in the scorching elixir.
It was as if every inch of me could taste
and had been coated in burning honey. It
was as painful as it was raptuous,
horrifying in its intensity, and yet I
was powerless to stop how
desperately I devoured the blood.
Sight and sound returned to me, and I saw
that my head lay in a woman's lap, whose
hands cupped blood above my face that
trickled through her fingers to my lips.
(...) My hands clasped hers by reflex,
pulling them to my mouth and taking the
rest of the blood from them.
Then my body was wracked with convulsions
as the living blood mingled with my own,
quickening it from its
languor into a boiling vortex.
When the roiling had subsided, I
staggered to my feet and saw
the woman standing before me.
She was as beautiful as she was terrible
to behold. A gown of gossamer white
adorned her body, pale as the flesh
beneath, save for the red upon her neck,
for her throat had been cut wide open,
yet she smiled softly.
Her dead eyes, glassy and pale, seemed to
stare through me, and her long black hair
flowed out around her, as if underwater.
She was both maiden and monster. I had
seen her like before, knew her to be a
banshee, and therefore part of Deadhaus.
Part of me knew I was in great danger,
but I could scarcely register those
thoughts.(...) The blood spoke for me.
“I need more.”
“There is more.”
Her voice permeated my thoughts, though
her mouth did not move.
She stepped aside, her gown flowing as if
underwater, and gestured to an altar
where an enormous veiled statue rose, the
same as I had seen in theSundered Graves.
Blood ran in rivulets from the stone
folds of its veil, down its wrist and
outstretched hand, dripping from its
fingers as it had from hers.
I lurched past her, rushing for the
statue, but soon felt a cold fire press
against the back of my neck.(...) My body
seized, and my blood no longer flowed.
(...) I had felt something like this
before, on the day the tacia fell. It was
the touch of death itself.
I strained my neck as best I could to see
that she held the point of an elongated
sewing needle against it.
“The unclean may not
touch the icon of the Weaver.”
“P-please.”
The scent of blood so close felt as if
gravity itself had reoriented toward the
statue, and yet I was utterly
motionless, without as within.
“I’ll do anything.”
“Then kneel before our lord.”
The needle was removed from the back of
my neck, but kept hovering just above it.
Every drop of blood in me surged forward,
but I knew what awaited me if I obeyed
the impulse, for the touch of the needle
was as the fangs of the
Pillar. It could give me true death.
With trembling restraint, I knelt, eyes
locked on the veiled statue.
“Good, you can resist your thirst.
You can listen.”
“Not…. for long.”
“I will feed you.”
She stepped toward the statue, her bare
feet only briefly touching the floor, her
body floating between steps. She cupped
her hands beneath the statue, and I
listened to the agony of them filling
with blood, drop by drop. Then she turned
and stepped off the floor, floating
before me, sinking to her knees and
offering her blood-filled hands, and I
fed from them, seeing no visions as I did.
“More… I need more,” I told her
once I’d finished. I could feel my
strength returning
slowly, but it was not enough.
“I know.
Stay.”
Again she rose and went to the statue,
and again she returned to me, feeding me
of the blood that gave no visions.
And as she fed me, she spoke to me,
telling me of things I shall not write
now, of nine gods and
the beginning of all.
I realized as I listened that Amorax had
told me some of this before. He was
reciting a portion of the Pale Doctrine
when we made our contract.
Now I heard the stories in full detail,
but I will write of them later.(...)
Eventually the stories were finished, and
I was, well, I cannot say
sated, but at my full strength.
“Thank you.”
"Thank the Weaver.(...)
It bade me to theveil."
I nodded, but the banshee simply stared
at me, expectantly.
“Uh… thank you… Weaver.”
"Bow your head."
I did as she commanded.
"Fold your hands."
Again I obeyed.
"Close your eyes and recite my words.
“I thank thee for
deliverance from life.”
“I thank thee for
deliverance from life.”
“I thank thee for
deliverance from life.”
“And so shall I deliver unto thee.”
“Unwoven souls for thy tapestry.”
“Unwoven souls for
thy tapestry.” "Amen."
"Amen."
When I opened my eyes, the statue was
bloodless, as if it had been scoured.
“You may rise.”
I stood then to notice for the first time
the chamber that held me. Vaulted
ceilings loomed above, etched with a
lace-like tracery of bones. Behind me,
rows of skeletal pews stretched across
the open floor, their backs wrought of
backbones, their armrests of arm bones,
and their feet of the same
absurdly gruesome pattern.
Many souls sat in those pews, their
translucent heads bowed in prayer, and
other banshees sat praying with them.
Each banshee was dressed in gossamer,
each had her throat cut, but their hair
was bound in a knot at the nape of their
necks, fastened in
place with elongated needles.
I stood surrounded by enemies, yet I
sensed no danger, no hostility.
Indeed, they had delivered me from a fate
far worse than death.
Did they know who I
was, who resided within me?
Theliche had been utterly silent since I
woke. I decided to say
nothing of my identity.
“A Pale Temple…
you brought me here?”
“The Weaver brought you here. I was but
the instrument of its will.”
“I see… and you are?”
"I am a sister of the Death's Head Coven.
I am calledKeeva."
pray to the weaver for blood?"
"The weaver will always hear your prayers,
but there is only one
petition it will answer.
Death."
"Then... why did the statue bleed?"
"We do not question theWeaver's will. We
accept its blessings and givethanks."
"By sending its souls..."
"Yes…those that die and are given their
rites may enter this realm. The Pale
Temples call to them with the death
knell, and the souls gather here to pray
before passing below.”
She nodded toward a stairway that led
below the temple floor. The distant echo
of a woman’s weeping emanated from the
passage, the likes of which I once heard
through the Way Stone at Os Kurrox.
“Why does she weep?” I asked, but
Keeva only stared sorrowfully ahead.
“What do they pray then?”
“Some for mercy, some for justice. We
pray with them, for as long as they need.
When they are ready, they pass below.”
“But the Weaver only
answers prayers for death?”
“Death is mercy.
Death is justice.
In time, it will answer all.”
"And what of those that die forgotten?
(...) Those that must
wander Malorum asghosts?"
“They are the work of the coven, to
find and give their rites, to put to rest.
You too may aid in this, and we will
favor you. For just as Malorum is full of
ghosts,(...) so too is our realm, full of
those that did not heed the death knell.
(...) They are the lost.(...) And we must
guide them here, to be broughtbelow."
“I cannot. I have a quest of my own,”
I said, remembering then my purpose in
this forsaken realm, hoping that I might
leave the temple without incident.
“There was a spirit with
me when I fell, a shade.”
Keeva held her dagger-like needle up
between thumb and forefinger, and a
streak of sickly green flew
to it and began to orbit it.
"Your guide."
"Yes..." I said with some hesitation, not
knowing what all she knew.
"Go with Alaric Child.
Show him the way to the
graveof Gwyneth Armin."
and began to circle my left hand.
My blood tensed inside,
ready to blast, to flee.
"You know my name, mypurpose?"
“For I was bade by the Weaver to
retrieve you, to set you on your quest
anew. I believe this belongs to you.”
She gestured to the maw, which lay upon
one of the skeletal pews, and I scooped
it up under one arm.(...)“Am I not
your enemy? Have I not
violated the ritual?”
"Not as much as the one withinyou."
As she said this, she brought the needle
near her head, and her hair swept itself
into a knot at the base of her neck,
which she pierced with the needle,
holding it in place.
"We'll deal with him later."
“Is that so? Then do you know how
to--” The back of my left hand burned
with cold fire, and the sigil upon it
brightened. I sighed.
In the veil, I saw
something, a place I'd been before.
“The Veil of Vestiges is where the Lost
wander. They do not know that they are
dead. They do not accept it. Instead,
they see only what they were in life,
places,people,
and this is reflected in the veil.
You saw an echo of thelost."
“I saw something else… I saw myself.
But it wasn’t me--I was there that
day--I did not kill them!”
“Did you not?”
To this, I said nothing, but
turned to leave the temple.
"Alaric."
Keeva called after me, and I stopped.
"Beware the soul of GwynethArmin."
Then the bell told its death knell, and
the doors of the temple flung wide. I
walked against the stream of souls that
marched in long lines of translucent
green.(...) The ones who came to pray
with the banshees, and to pass below.
When I stepped outside. I saw that I was
in the pyric fields, and the temple
behind me straddled another great river.
(...) A familiar voice echoed in my mind.
"Alaric?(...)Youpersist.
I thought for certain you
were a bloodstone bynow."
"I was delivered."
"Oh?"
with your sentience intact?
"Hmm...but you're freshly fed...
"Strange...
most strange."
The shade began to drift away from the
temple, and I followed, no longer leaving
footprints in the ashes. “You can go
faster now, little shade, fast as you
can”. The shade streaked ahead into the
falling ash, and I followed with ease,
once more able to move as a blur. We
reached the wall of mist that marked the
boundary of the Veil of Vestiges, and I
grit my fangs and pushed inside. I saw
shapes moving in the fog, sometimes
structures, sometimes people, arguing,
weeping. I saw figures gathered round a
gallows, watching a lost soul swing. I
saw children skipping through the mists,
humming to themselves.
I ignored them all and chased the shade,
and then it stopped.
Below its sickly green light, a tombstone
was illuminated.(...) Engraved on its
face were the words, "Here
lies Gwyneth Armin, deceiver."
“Well… here we are,
liche. What would you have me do?”
"You must dig."
Though I had no shovel, I also had no
need of one. I set down the maw and
reached for the soil
beneath the tombstone.
Waves of telekinetic force split the
ground, and as I lifted my hand above my
head, so too did mounds of dirt wrench
free and float above me. With a sweep of
my hand they were cast aside, and a
mouldering coffin was revealed.
“Now, place your hands on the maw, but
don’t touch where its mouth
was. I’m going to open it.”
I did as theliche instructed. Green
energy crackled from within me and
through my hands, tracing the visage of
the maw,(...) parting the stone so that
it opened into a vertical mouth beneath
three eyes.(...) And once, the maw grew
hundreds of times heavier.
“Now, open the coffin, and touch the
mouth of the maw to the remains.”
Withsome difficulty, I shifted the
weight of the maw to one arm, then, with
a flick of my free wrist, ripped the lid
of the coffin free with telekinesis. The
inside was darker than my eyes could
pierce, a preternatural darkness.
I descended into the grave, hefting the
maw with me, straddling the pitch-black
opening of the coffin.
“I can’t see the
remains. I can’t see anything.”
“What? I can see them. Just bend down
and touch the maw to them.”
I assumed that Amorax's attunement to
magic granted him vision that was denied
to me. In truth, it was
his vision that was obscured.
As I knelt down, carefully maneuvering
the maw so as not to touch its mouth, a
tangle of strange fleshy cords burst from
the darkness and seized my leg. I had no
time to scream before they
pulled me down into the dark.
And I learned then that
this was no coffin, but a door.
Alaric the Damned.